fit to last

in the words of well known grimpeur, julie andrews, let's start at the very beginning. assuming you fancy buying your first road bike, how do you figure out what size frame will provide hours of comfort in the saddle? sure, you could ask someone you know who already has what appears to be a fine piece of velocipedal machinery, you could drop by the local bike shop and have a word in someone's shell-like, or you could manage hours of research on the web trying to find a suitable formula to work it out for yourself. and with so many bicycles sold over the internet, sizing is probably an amalgam of all the above. and if you look around you at cyclists passing by, you can often see the results.

and assuming that, by some strange quirk of fate you manage a frame that won't leave you as a soprano should you have to stop in a hurry, what about stem length, bar width, bar drop...? suddenly cycling life seems a lot more complex than the adverts in the comic made it seem. of course, there's always trial and error - any bike shop worth its salt will let you swap one or two components to near your own personal nirvana, but there are limits.

and everyone has their comfort zone as far as pricing is concerned - those happy to spend the better part of £3000 ($6000) on a frame, are unlikely to see a £1000 ($2000) bicycle as a major expense. but those viewing the latter as rather more than they'd like to spend on a bicycle, obviously would beg to differ. however, completely irrespective of your acceptable price point, wouldn't it just be a rather good idea to be told what size you need, by folks that know a darned sight more than you? then any subsequent purcahse can be made with confidence, and you can even sound knowledgeable while you're doing it.

or, perhaps, you already have that dream slice of italian carbon fibre, but for some reason, every time you come back from that sunday ride, there are niggling pains that never seem to go away, even after footering with pedals, saddles, bars - we've all been there, and some of us probably still are.

unsurprisingly, perhaps, such services exist. and one whose title tells all, is cycle-fit, in macklin street, covent garden. i have seen many an unprepossessing cycle shop in my travels, but never one that hides its light under a bushel as well as this place. concealed behind frosted glass doors in one of covent garden's less ostentatious side streets, cycle-fit bears no outward signs of the cycling delights concealed within. there's not even a display window - now that's what i'd call subtle.

walking unannounced into a cycle shop in which the first set of wheels you see, happen to be attached to a limited edition colnago ferrari, can be a mite intimidating, but the staff ensconced behind the desk, threequarters way down the long, narrow display area, were among some of the friendliest i've met. if you're going to try this yourself, relax - intimidation is all in your head.

at the back of the shop is cycle-fit's raison d'etre - a serotta fit-system that can provide benefits to everyone from a cycling newbie all the way up to professional cyclists - male and female. in fact, on the day of my visit, a female cyclist was about half way through the two hour fitting service (£150 - $300). cyclefit sell their own brand of cycles (glider) which are the result of many years of fitting experience - if you plump for one of those, the fitting service benefits from a major reduction to only £30 ($60) and takes forty five minutes.

one of cycle-fit's three brands on offer is the highly renowned serotta - decide that one of their frames is for you and the rebate on a fitting service can be as much as the full £150. however, julian wall, who very kindly gave me the guided tour, pointed out that whichever of their fitting services you decide to avail yourself, there is no pressure or necessity to make your frame purchase from cyclefit. can't really say fairer than that. but the factor that drew thewashingmachinepost to cyclefit in the first place was their adoption by colnago to offer measuring and subsequent custom building of a carbon frame from the cambiago factory. as mentioned elsewhere, delivery of just such a dream version of the italian black stuff isn't speedy. serotta apparently quote around six weeks for a custom build - with colnago, swap weeks for months. having been fitted for your entry to the peloton, you'll need to be clothed; cyclefit offer castelli cyclewear and the little known rocket 7 shoes. with their own brand glider frames starting from as little as £499 ($1000) there are fewer and fewer reasons to have to think of where to spend that budget.

if you need to check out the niggling pains, take those first steps into what is the most beautiful addiction it has been my pleasure to adhere to, or develop your patience and wait for that custom colnago - macklin street, just off drury lane, and don't just stand outside those glass doors.

bigger is better

we're rapidly approaching the point four years on, from when rapha issued their first item of cycling apparel for public consumption. at that point it was the brainchild and output of two people - simon mottram and luke scheybeler, both of whom are still very much in charge at imperial works, perren street, kentish town, london. early adopters may remember claire wilson in sales, rapha's first employee and someone who has now moved on to pastures new (entirely amicably, i might add). but there is now a veritable army of worker bees at rapha, which has necessitated a move from one side of the third floor in imperial works, to both sides of the top floor. since building work that was in the early stages when i visited last year is now several storeys further advanced, shifting upwards has retained rapha's clear view across the railway on one side, and the rooftops of kentish town on the other.

as is often the case in such situations, the increase in space seems to have been married to a concomitant increase in stuff to fill it. one half of the top floor is now office space, where the agglomoration of stylish thought makes its way into the cycle clothing you and i will be wearing in the months to come. across the hall is the sales and despatch department - racks and racks of cardboard boxes, holding layers and layers of some of the finest velo clothing to come out of the uk in many a long year. expansion doesn't come without accoutrements; in this case, an increase in both orders and depth of range has necessitated adding personnel in every department, from design all the way through to despatch. increasing the reach across the pond - all north american orders are also despatched from perren street - has meant more work for more people.

rene groot joined rapha as the departed claire's tele-sales assistant, and has, in the intervening period, become rapha's sales manager. he very kindly showed me some rapha clothing that will become available to us all in a matter of months, as well as some 'developments' that i could tell you about, but then i'd have to nip round on the colnago and paint your windows black. suffice it to say that all those chaps sitting diligently in front of their apple macs, aren't watching youtube. i know i've mentioned it before in the oft quoted criticism of rapha prices, but the closer you get to perfection, the more expensive it gets. several iterations of the one product are either on coat hangers or on rapha staff - product testing. there's a lot of thought, and a lot of experimentation going on to get things just right, even things that you didn't actually realise you needed, then wonder how you ever managed without them.

and rapha is still a small enough company to turn on a sixpence, and to offer the personal touch - thewashingmachinepost, having arrived on what could probably live with the epithet 'the red eye' (caledonian sleeper from glasgow central); managing director simon mottram had arranged to meet me at rapha's offices at 08:30 - well before normal office hours. unfortunately, the best laid plans etc., meant simon couldn't manage to keep the appointment, but rather than leave me waiting out in the cold, he arranged for therese (bjorn) to open the cupboard door instead. care and attention where it counts.

therese seems to have appeared from nowhere, but in fact has been assisting with the organisation of several past rapha events including the award winning smithfield nocturne, and the successful rolapaluza racing. with rapha's increased involvement in what could loosely be termed extra curricular activities, putting something back into cycling on both sides of the atlantic, therese's workload can only increase. she has organised the current exhibition of photography by pete drinkell (tapestry in frith street, london) and the forthcoming launch of the book collaboration between rapha, graeme fife and pete drinkell, the great road climbs of the pyrenees.

it is testament to rapha's commitment to their world and ours, that an edifice of the rather minimalist stature of thewashingmachinepost, can still be given the red carpet treatment when paying a brief visit. the welcome befitted that of a long-time friend, for which i am truly appreciative. the only real disappointment was the apparent disappearance of the infamous wall of suffering.

still, the pink couch is still there.

many thanks to simon, luke, therese, rene and the other simon, for their time and attention - much appreciated.

because he can

currently on test in the principality is a colnago arte, weighing in at just over 9.5 kilos. you'll have to wait until i finish the road test to find out if this has any bearing on the overall swishing about, but the weight of the arte, and even the colnago c50 tested last may, wearing a pair of lightweight ventoux, seem rather hefty in comparison to gunter mai's rather extreme carbon doozy. the all-up weight of this tops the scales at a rather unbelievable 3.195kg, and he says that it's strong enough to allow him to cycle around 100km per week. aside from the fact that i'd rather like to have the time to reach that sort of distance in seven days (summer's coming), riding something that light must be quite an incredible experience.

of course, you don't get bicycles like this free in a packet of cornflakes - it all arrives at a (considerable) cost. and no small amount of customisation. the frame is a spin custom by marc seiberg, weighing an almost stupid 677.5 grams, steered by a thm scapula fork (again customised) at only 214 grams. however, the screamingly expensive parts of this customisation gone loopy, are a pair of lew racing pro vt-1 wheels. yes, they too have received attendant customisation and a hike in the price that would frighten even an investment banker, let alone the nice man who runs your local branch.

the lew wheels regularly weigh 850 grams a pair and retail at $6000 (about £3000). however, gunter mai had the wheels delivered to him with about 116 grams missing; he then removed another 30 grams by shaving some material off the axle end caps and replaced the steel freehub pawls and hub spacers with titanium used tapered carbon/boron axles and a full set of ceramic bearings. interestingly, mai uses only a six-speed cassette (?) so he shaved off the freehub splines that were surplus to requirement. customisation like this costs more than the a book of luncheon vouchers - gunter's customised lews lightened his bank account by $15,000 (almost £7500). incredibly, the kmc chain weighs more than the forks.

however, quote of the year has to be that from lew's european technical consultant, nils wiedemann, "the really astonishing thing behind this build is that...it is still perfectly usable."

the hick from the sticks at the centre of the universe

actually that's not entirely true - we all know that bowmore is the centre of the universe, but i'm using a smidgeon of literary license to create an atmosphere. you knew that anyway. every now and again it is incumbent on thewashingmachinepost to venture into the great unknown - with much of the uk cycling world arguably centred around london, the occasional visit doesn't do any harm - well, apart from some slight suffering by the bank balance.

fortunately london's transport system is somewhat more frequent and wide-ranging than that of argyll and bute, but it still takes advance planning to make sure that the demands of the post can be accommodated within limited time, stamina and the timetables of others. happily this is not as complex to arrange as it sounds, and important places were duly visited, including bike shops such as mosquito - an aladdin's cave to this country boy.

wabi woolens merino cycle jersey

i have no idea who's brilliant idea it was to start us all over again with wool cycle jerseys, after years of enduring ever thinner and more garish lycra, but they have my utmost admiration. sure, you can't just chuck them in the washing machine/tumble drier at the end of a long day in the saddle, and have them ready for wear again next day, but one of merino's more endearing properties is an almost pathological indifference to niffs. in other words, you might not have to wash it every day because it doesn't smell. in almost inverse proportion to my rejoicing when wearing merino, is mrs washingmachinepost's hatred of the stuff, because she's scared to death of the opporchancity to shrink my prized merino jerseys in the wash. actually she does love the wool, just not the washing instructions. so far all protestations of my willingness to do the handwashing myself have fallen on deaf ears.

merino jerseys arrive in many guises: those designed exclusively for leisure wear - effectively a wooly pullover with cycling pretensions (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that - even cyclists have to be civilians now and again), those with some semblance of being for cycling use, such as three rear pockets and those that are expressly offered as a merino replacement for the day to day cycle jerseys. the very lycra that i mentioned earlier.

in this last category, i may well have found the rolls royce of merino cycle jerseys, hailing from the world's cycling mecca, portland oregon. living up to the ethos of their japanese derived name, wabi woolens have produced a jersey that is simple, fresh and unpretentious, while incorporating a sense of rustic beauty. and as if that weren't enough, the colourway sent to the principality is espresso - and we all know how important that is in the world of thewashingmachinepost.

the colour is superb - if i stood behind the counter in debbie's, i'd all but disappear. but it doesn't just stop there: wabi jerseys are designed to shrink slightly when first washed, so they're supplied slightly baggier than necessary, with considerable length in the sleeves and body - major brownie points as far as the post is concerned on that score. collar and cuffs are ribbed and in contrasting colour to the jersey (black in this case), the latter being not as high as some, but quite luxurious in its softness. the area round the ykk zip and back of the neck are all double layered - very thick and appearing indestructible.

the body is tailored for cycling, tapering towards the waist and cut noticably longer at the back with enough elasticity to hold the jersey in place during those alpe d'huez or milan san remo moments. just the way it should be. there are three open rear pockets, commendably secure at the top and with more than adequate depth. these are augmented by what i believe should be a legal requirement on all cycling jerseys of whatever ilk - a zipped pocket for debbie's coffee loyalty card, and the wherewithal to pay for that jersey matching tiny cup.

on the bike, with simply a merino baselayer for company, it wasn't quite the right thing to wear for islay's march weather - i only managed a brief scoot round the estates, and a waterproof had to be donned long before half-way. but the comfort factor was way off the scale. as stated on wabiwoolens' website intended to quietly enhance the outdoor experience without becoming the focus of the experience. couldn't have put it better myself. and, of course, there is the added joy of not looking like a peloton escapee when dining al fresco (maybe not at this time of year, but you get the idea). aside from the giveaway clacking of cleats on concrete or lino, wabiwoolens espresso jersey would keep your secret identity as just another everyday pedestrian/civilian hidden from prying motorists and taxi drivers enjoying an afternoon break.

wabi jerseys are available in three colours: espresso, sandstone red and eggplant, and in sizes too numerous to make any sense here. bearing in mind the advisory note about shrinkage, prospective buyers should spend more than a minute looking at the comprehensive size chart on the wabiwoolens website. there is also the longest set of washing instructions i have ever come across, featured both on the website and delivered along with the jersey - it makes more than a little sense to pay special attention to these; this jersey is soooooo good, there is not even an itsy bitsy chance i am going to endanger its wellbeing by failing to heed the experts in this matter.

the jerseys cost $140 (£70) each plus postage to your country of abode. even at double the cost, these would be an absolute steal. very highly recommended.

the rapha guide to the great road climbs of the pyrenees by graeme fife with photography by pete drinkell. published by rapha. 320pp illustrated. hardback. £40 (approx $80).

the post has a longer history of reviewing books than anything else, partly because i love books, and partly because i love books about cycling. and during the experience of reviewing, as with almost everything, you come across examples that have been labours of love and those that have either been issued as part of a contractual obligation or just because they can. and as someone who earns at least past of his living from designing, i adore publications that are often typified by the apellation 'coffee table books', though for some reason the latter seems to be considered a less than complimentary description. not so.

this latest offering from a partnership between rapha and cycling author graeme fife has been a long time in the mix, almost comparable to the time taken to produce a guns 'n' roses album - a hopelessly inadequate comparison, because this is an eminently more satisfying result. if you've downloaded the circle of death pdf from rapha's website, you may have read the intro which states 'in march 2006, rapha will publish massif: guide to the great climbs of the pyrenees' and which contains black and white photos, chunky lettering a la rouleur and elevation graphics and maps relating to the circle of death writings by graeme fife.

at the point that this pdf was issued, the book had already been in the works for the better part of a year, and no doubt simon mottram at rapha was fed up with my persistent e-mails enquiring as to what was happening with the book. effectively two years on, and the finished result is a paradigm shift away from the pdf taster. and it's absolutley flipping gorgeous.

hitherto unsung photographer, at least in the context of the world of rapha/rouleur, pete drinkell has provided some excellent photography of the climbs and their attendant landscapes, in similar mode to the photos by olaf unverzart in the rouleur photography annual (there is currently an exhibition of photographs from the book in tapestry, frith street, london, which is well worth seeing - drinkell's works benefit greatly from being seen at large scale.) but graeme fife has easily lived up to the cycling world's expectations; it's difficult to tell who is supporting who here. is this a book of beautiful photography enhanced by a clarity of writing, or is it the other way round? to be honest, it really matters not one whit - read it or view it either way, or both ways together. happiness will be yours.

there are a total of eighty-seven climbs described here, predominantly in a matter of fact way (it is supposed to be a guide, after all), some of which have had fame ascribed them due to their association with le tour. others less so. graeme fife explains that it was deemed necessary to slot the cols into regions, some thematic using local descriptions, and some the informed inventions of rapha and mr fife. doing so has undoubtedly helped with our appreciation of so many ascents. one of the book's unexpected and perhaps unsung features is a condensed history of the pyrenean region, from bc to present times. context is everything when attempting to appreciate that of which we are not as familar as the author.

length, height gain and maximum gradient are all detailed at the beginning of each climb, followed by factual, but idiosyncratic descriptions, in the renowned fife manner. the more well known climbs are often bolstered by stories from tours past, while more than just a few have hand-drawn elevation graphs, not only enhancing readers' knowledge of those portrayed in this manner, but adding nicely to the book's layout. rapha style extends beyond clothing. continuing beyond the pages, it is a beautifully bound volume - when you receive your copy, make sure you peek behind the dust jacket - the 'hidden' cover is an embossed luxury. the pages are more tactile than the oft published glossy sheen, serving pete drinkell's photos well and adding an impressive 'heft' to the volume in all senses of the word.

i know that this book has been a labour of love, but the joy is that you can tell this from the moment you hold a copy in your hands. reading/viewing only confirms those first impressions. the rapha guide to the great road climbs of the pyrenees is officially launched on thursday 13th march, and will be available from rapha.cc.

the first eighteen years are the worst...

by way of easing my feet back under the desk after a brief whizz to the great metropolois, i start off with a happy occasion. unfortunately i was out of scotland when the e-mail arrived, but amends can now be made. cycling.tv commentator (or pundit, as he would have it), former british road race champion and braveheart fund supremo, brian smith, and his partner kerry keeble (daughter of 1972 olympic team pursuit bronze medallist, ron keeble) can now rejoice in the patter of tiny cleats: it's a boy. ethan james smith, another future british champion, weighed in at 8lb 12oz on march 4th.

i'm sure that all will join with thewashingmachinepost in sending best wishes and congratulations to this new addition to the smith peloton.

home sweet home

after what seems an age (only a year) the spring classics have started again with het volk today (saturday 1st march) and kuurne brussels kuurne tomorrow, with both races live on cycling.tv. and without wishing to sound like an advertisement, what a difference it makes. as i mentioned below, washingmachinepost towers is currently host to a colnago arte, which was taken around part of the principality this morning in windy, wet weather to gain an idea of what was what, and what wasn't. the full test will be in these pixels at some time in the near future, but the day was nicely rounded off by changing out of wet cycling apparel, grabbing some lunch and settling down on the comfy chair ready to watch some excellent racing with excellent commentary.

it felt just like a warm night in, in front of the central heating with a bag of peat for company - how i adore the spring classics, if only because the terrain looks marginally familiar, and the weather seems more like home than either the giro, or le tour. if training/cycling/road testing has felt like a chore up until now, it will no longer. because anytime that islay headwind blows, and a drench of atlantic rain seeps in through the catlike vents, i'll concentrate on trying to catch philippe gilbert who's probably just a few kilometres up the road, and flagging ever so slightly. this is the time of year to pop on a pair of armwarmers and celebrate the weather rather than hide from it.

car envy?

stan day is ceo of sram, the makers of a groupset called after a colour which, to my mind, is quite a smooth thing to do. having started with gripshift, after buying up various other component manufacturers along the way, they have combined all of these, along with their own expertise and produced complete groupsets for both mountain bikes and skinny wheels. this sort of puts them on a par with shimano, in that campagnolo only make for the road.

i have to admit that i have yet to ride a bicycle kitted out with any of the sram componentry, though if anyone from sram is reading, i am more than happy to do so. but the object of this article is not to disdain or praise the third prong of the component fork, but to remark on a statement made by the selfsame mr day in an interview with america's business week. in this entertaining and wide ranging interview, stan manages to become something of a contradiction.

apparently, sram's chicago offices, home to its 100 employees, have a car park almost bereft of motor cars - a significant majority, including day himself, cycle to work and the car park is 'filled up' with high end non and off road bicycles. so far, so good, but then mr day manages to shoot himself in his pro-cycling foot by stating that shimano is the lexus of the cycle component world, campagnolo are the ferrari and sram must, therefore, be the porsche.

why?

i know i'm taking this waaay too far, but was it really necessary to compare bicycle manufacturers with car manufacturers, even if they are of a high standing within the world of luxury items? is not the cycle industry self-sufficient enough to lose the ties to the motor car?

oblique strategies

bear with me, if you will, while i lead you through one of the stranger marketing episodes promulgated by the distillery that lives down the road. bowmore distillery currently lays claim to being the oldest distillery on islay, having become legal in 1779. therefore, as their marketing department would have it, the produce the original islay malt. fair enough, so far.

not being one for partaking of the so-called amber nectar, i am largely ambivalent toward all this whisky stuff, but accepting that a bottle of single malt, from any one of the island's eight distilleries could, conceivably, be regarded as a luxury item, it doesn't seem too far fetched that most of them pitch their wares at the affluent end of the market. if you want to convert into cycling terms, think colnago, pinarello, et al. however, not content with telling the world that a dram of bowmore single malt should appeal to our sense of luxury, bowmore have launched a secondary website designed to educate all in the ways of upper classetiquette.

currently showing on this bowmore way site (does anyone still 'launch' websites these days) are short, but probably excruciatingly expensive videos, on how to cut a potato to look like a mushroom, how to win at chess in only four moves, and how to shine your shoes properly - no, i'm not making this up. quite what this has to do with single malt whisky is quite beyond me, though doubtless someone in bowmore's inner sanctum has the answer.

but more to the point, what has all this got to do with cycling - well, nothing really, but it does have a vaguely similar corollary to the latest from the chaps at rapha/rouleur. on wednesday evening, 26th of march, rouleur editor guy andrews and bicycle mechanic extraordinaire and rouleur contributor, rohan dubash, will be showing the assembled multitudes in perren street (well, thirty of you anyway), how to assemble a colnago race bike. has that got anything to do with magazines and cycle clothing? possibly not, but it's a darned sight closer than shiny shoes are to single malt whisky.

if you'd like to audition the considerable mechanical wisdom of both andrews and dubash, i'm afraid you're too late - all thirty places have gone already

arte lies in the details

especially flown in from italy, a rather stunning looking red and white colnago arte arrived at washingmachinepost towers for an upcoming road test. despite colnagos having an expensive reputation (the c50 series starts at around £2500 - $5000) this complete bicycle retails at £1500 ($3000), and that's with an ultegra groupset. so it's affordable - and perhaps because of that, i have had a remarkable number of correspondents enquring as to when i would be testing either the arte, or its cheaper sibling, the primavera (for which prices start as low as £850 - $1700 for a 105 equipped model).

but irrespective what it says on the down tube, does it ride like a colnago? we'll soon find out.

...and happily, one thing leads to another

this has connotations of sherlock holmes - i discovered nice things while researching (stop sniggering) something else. something else almost exactly the same, i hasten to add, and perhaps unlike sherlock holmes, i discovered it inadvertantly. so, not really like sherlock holmes at all. anyway, having written about craig calfee's rather delectable bamboo bicycles just the other day, it turns out that these are even less of a joke than one or two correspondents thought i might have been playing.

bicycles currently used by the natives of kenya are old-style british colonial bicycles similar to the roadsters purveyed by pashley. no critcism of that style of bicycle, but they were never developed for that part of the world. however, while the bicycle is the most practical form of transport almost anywhere in the world, this is acutely so in kenya, and neighbouring states in africa. unfortunately, framebuilders are fiercely thin on the ground, coming perilously close to non-existent, and the cost of importing even cheap bicycles from asia, is impractical and economic in a country where the per capita income would be hard hit by the costs.

so a group of engineers and scientists from columbia university in the usa have collaborated with bamboo bike builder, craig calfee, to teach members of the kenyan population how to build their own cycles from the copious amounts of bamboo available throughout the country. the project has received seed funding from the earth institute at the university, and they are currently hoping to attract enough donations to fund a full-time educator for one year in kenya.

since craig calfee (below) is the man that knows, he spent time in kenya teaching a group of locals how to go about bamboo bike building. an initial difficulty was a complete lack of carbon fibre or hemp used in the wrapping of the frame joints. however, the group were extremely fortunate to discover sisal fibre, which wasn't exactly what they were looking for, but it served the purpose, and the desired end result was achieved.

obviously there are parts that are impossible to fabricate from bamboo such as headsets, bottom brackets, wheels and forks etc., these items are imported from asia, but at far lower cost than bikes because it's possible to put so many more in a container. currently the resin required to apply the sisal fibre is also imported, but the bamboo bike project are searching for a local alternative.

with the aid of these smaller parts, the aim is to teach enough of the indigenous population to build these cargo carrying bicycles, making the the kenyans self sufficient in this respect to a large extent, and able to improve personal transport within and between the townships and communities. the project accepts online donations, and also has a cycle jersey and t-shirt available for purchase, with profits going towards the organisation's work in kenya (if you're ordering from europe, you'll have to add in an extra $10 for postage).

it's great and heartwarming that the bicycle can make such an incredible difference to the peoples of the world, and particularly so when someone of the standing of craig calfee puts in so much effort on others' behalf. if you'd like to read more about the work of the bamboo bike project, or even donate something towards the costs, pop over to bamboobike.org.

feets don't fail me now

with cycle technology moving at what seems an alarming rate, making everything you own, so passe after a mere season of use, it's not too unusual to see this state of affairs wending its way into all the associated bits that you 'need' to cycle your bicycle. assos have already, needlessly or otherwise, employed carbon fibre in their shorts (ouch), and we have had the same material stiffen up the soles of our shoes for many a long year. however, the current buzzword, or phrase to associate itself with footcoverings is, moldable fit. i think i'm correct in stating that lake shoes were the first to offer a pair that could be molded to fit the feet (if i'm wrong, i'm wrong), but a pair of moldable carbon fibre shoes is definitely news to me.

such is the latest footwear from bont shoes, of campsie, new south wales, australia. bont started out producing fibreglass reinforced skating shoes, and still produce some dramatic looking inline skates, but the use of the technology seems to have pointed them in the direction of bona fide cycle shoes, in colours that ensure they're not missed in the peloton. the footbed of each shoe is only 1mm thick, making it very lightweight and highly heat moldable. memory foam completes stage two, wrapped with anti-stretch tapes, similar in intent to seat belts ensuring, the shoe won't stretch over time.

over this structure, bont hand-lay unidirectional, aircraft grade carbon fibre, an outer layer of cross-weave carbon finished off with rubber carbon protectors and covered with a final layer of carbon. due to the fact that the carbon is impregnated with thermo set resin, this allows the shoe to become soft when heated in an oven (85 degrees c for about twenty minutes). placing them on the feet and pulling the straps up tight allows them to mold to the shape of your feet when they cool. average weight is 225 - 250g per shoe.

and what does it cost for all this foot technology? well surprisingly it's a very reasonable £180 per pair ($350) which compares very well with much of todays top line cycle footwear. they're available in a wide range of sizes and colours, a couple of widths and different closure options, and can be ordered from the bont website.